The Way to Winter
by starlit skyes
Summary: She was the vivid fire in his soul. Glacial gusts blew, and the fire flickered desperately, its heart crying, dancing tremulously with the wind...winter was approaching, and he loved her.


**A/N: **In response to Incognito's challenge at the DG Forum. *sighs* I'd forgotten how much I missed angst. Yay, sadness! :D

*assumes sombre expression*

**Prompt: **October (since, where I live, it isn't fall OR spring, I've written about what it means to me, here)

**Challenge:** Find the beauty or the ugliness in the season.

The word limit was 800, and I've exceeded it...by about a hundred words. *looks ashamed* Still, I hope you like it!

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Clouds lurked, rolling gray monsters, growling quietly in the sky. Rain fell like a mist around her.

Azkaban rose, like a black temple of death from the middle of the boiling tongues of writhing, murky water. Glistening rags of rotting black, giving a chilling hiss, flitted around the prison...the Dementors were happy today.

Ginny glanced up at the pale sun, waging a losing battle against the smothering clouds, and wondered what the point of it was. Why fight the clouds, the death? As winter approached, water would freeze into ice, trees holding up their pained, naked arms to the bleak sky...death would be a cold, sickly sweet scent in the air, coming off the piles of sparkling snow that smothered and choked all the desperate attempts at life the earth offered. So why fight?

Ginny trembled. There was always reason to fight. She'd never stop...

Her Patronus gamboled lithely at her feet as she approached the innards of Azkaban. She glanced around herself, at the cool white sky where the gray congealed in coiling lumps, at the churning water beneath her, smoky and dangerous.

The prison had no gates; cages, floating eerily above the slimy black rock, held its deranged prisoners, who huddled in the corner, their breath rattling gasps, waiting for the insanity that approached them.

Ginny knew, with sickening certainty, that a part of him was drifting away with every moment, with every cold breath taken by the gaping mouths of the prison's guards. That his stormy gray eyes grew wilder, more inhuman, every time she saw him.

Yet, every October, when death was imminent and life tried to live, she visited him.

She saw him, crouched against the wall, his silvery hair falling limply on his shoulders. She saw how he had weakened, his once strong body emaciated, wasting away. He raised his bone-white face, and his gray eyes, with an odd fire burning in them, fixed on her.

And as she gazed into that face she loved, looked into the beautiful eyes_—_eyes that were shadowed and darkened, gaunt in that thin white face_—_her Patronus disappeared. Not because she didn't need it anymore, but at the sight of the man she loved...there was no sun anymore, only shadows; only the wretchedness that possessed her wholly, the need to hold him and warm him, filling her voice as she uttered his name, her heart crying brokenly.

"Draco."

He spoke, his voice flat and hoarse. "Ginny."

When he smiled, she knew with horror that another part of him had ebbed away.

"Is it October already?" he murmured, gazing down thoughtfully at his long, thin fingers. "Time passes so oddly here."

Yes, it passed oddly, Draco thought, eyeing the redheaded woman impassively. There were times of numbing madness, of staring at the water, welcoming death...there were times when he cowered into the cold floors of his cage, shaking all over, burning with every memory of her starry eyes, her fiery curls.

"You look beautiful," he said, in the same harsh voice. He glanced down at himself bitterly. "I'm sure the same can't be said of me."

Her voice was desperate, her eyes stinging; she wanted to run through the bars and touch him. "Draco, you're beautiful to me. Always."

He laughed. "Let's not fight anymore losing battles, Ginevra." His sunken eyes glowed. "Winter always kills, and somehow, you always come just before another bit of me dies."

"We met in October. When October meant everything old died, so a new circle could begin. When it meant hope."

He dropped his gaze, and for the first time, his voice shook. "We were fools."

He put his face in his hands, his entire frame seeming to tremble. When he surfaced again, his eyes were impossibly bright, screaming a pain that made her feel shattered, like shards of broken glass.

"Why did you come?" he demanded, his voice raw. "Can't you stay away, let me be?"

"Don't say that," begged Ginny, eyes streaming. "Don't say that."

He saw the tears sparkling in her eyes, and he only wanted to die, because she was his very heart, his soul, and to see her crying thus, when his soul rotted with every shallow breath he took, made him unable to breathe, made him want to cry.

She should leave, be happy, so his soul could depart without the pain.

"I love you," said Ginny, her voice breaking. "Never forget that. I'll only ever love you."

Draco stood slowly, his bones aching in protest, and approached the bars of the cage with a walk that had once been fluid and graceful. She stared at his hollow cheeks, at the shadowy eyes_—_even while he gazed at her calmly, she could see him in those eyes, writhing, rattling the bars, dying.

"Go," he said. "October is only a useless attempt, a broken protest. The sun tries to shine..." he paused to smirk bitterly at the sky, "...and fails. Winter is the relief, telling us to stop fighting, because the war has been long lost. Stop fighting, Ginny." The last words burned in his voice, almost a plea. His eyes fixed upon the dying blades of grass that broke through the cracks in the rock. "Winter is coming, even if I love you."

The fire in his eyes dimmed until they were frighteningly flat chips of wintry ice.

"Go, Ginny," he said quietly, fearing that his voice would fail him if he spoke louder. "Don't come back."

She said nothing, but her eyes spoke what she didn't voice. He turned away, suddenly falling to his knees, losing all the strength he possessed, losing everything, as the rain began to fall in earnest around him, icy sheets splattering the barren ground.

She was the vivid fire in his soul. Glacial gusts blew, and the fire flickered desperately, its heart crying, dancing tremulously with the wind.

He didn't know if she'd left. It made no difference.

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**A/N:** Please, please review! It would certainly make my day.


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